Management Shuffle At AOL's Legal Department (And A New CTO)

8 years

AOL‘s chief legal officer Ira Parker, who has taken up that role since 2006, is transitioning to an advisory role at the company. Replacing him at the helm is Julie M. Jacobs, who joined the company back in 2000 and is now being promoted to Executive Vice President and General Counsel at AOL.

The company also finally appointed a new chief technology officer, Alexander Gounares, who will lead all aspects of AOL’s technology strategy, platform development and external technology partnerships, as well as play a key leadership role in the overall strategy and direction of the company.

Julie Jacobs will oversee all AOL’s legal affairs, manage its legal department and provide counsel to senior management on a range of issues. In this role, she will report directly to Chairman and CEO Tim Armstrong, as will Gounares.

Jacobs most recently served as Senior Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, where she managed all the corporate and transactional legal work for the company including securities law compliance, corporate governance, M&A and commercial transactions.

Ira Parker, who is stepping down as chief legal officer, played an instrumental role in leading AOL through the 10-month process of spinning off from Time Warner back in the day, Armstrong said in a statement. His signing off is timely, as the company hosted its very first shareholder meeting as the newly independent AOL just last week.

Gounares, AOL’s new CTO, joins from Microsoft where he was a Corporate VP and Chief Technology Officer for Microsoft’s Online Services Division. He also served for three years as Technology Advisor to Microsoft Chairman and founder Bill Gates, as well as Corporate Vice President of Corporate Strategy in Microsoft’s Finance Department. He will join AOL on May 13.

There’s been a lot of churn in AOL’s executive and employee ranks since Tim Armstrong became CEO. Recently, Mike Rich, the senior VP in charge of AOL Entertainment (which includes AOL Music, Moviefone, and AOL Television), departed. He joined a growing list of the old guard leaving the company (Bill Wilson, David Liu, Grant Cerny) in the wake of Armstrong’s new hires.